Astra Inclinant
by Lore55
Summary: A world on the brink of war is turned on its head by a set of unassuming sisters from another world. A world where science reigns supreme and magic is long dead.
1. In Dungeons Deep : Len

It wasn't hard for her to find her way down to the little room. It wasn't the dungeon, for which she was grateful, it was a small cell down a spiral staircase that Lord Viren kept largely to himself. Lenore wasn't sure why she was being brought down with a tray of food, trailing behind the old lord.

He was a tall man, well trimmed and proud. Viren had never been outright kind to her, but he was cordial and treated her well. Still, she could see the weight that grief had for him. His shoulders were drooped, his jaw was set tight and his eyes were dark in ways that they had not been before.

Lenore worried her lip between her teeth.

She wanted to speak, but what did she say? That she was sorry for his loss? They were all sorry for his loss, and the loss of the two princes. That she had over heard the argument he'd had with the king before he died?

She hadn't been trying to eavesdrop, but she and Prince Ezran had been exploring the walls of the palace ever since her arrival and she had been in one that day, looking for the prince. He'd gone missing sometime, and they were leaving and she happened to be standing behind the king's fireplace when Viren was ordered on his knees.

If it wasn't such a serious night, she would have assumed it was for something else.

So she didn't say anything on the way down into the darkness. She followed Viren, her skirt floating around her ankles as he took her down a long hallway. There were grates on either side, where water dripped down. To make clean up easier, she guessed.

The thought made her stomach turn.

Len had, at one point, worked directly for a very shady businessman. David Xanatos was charismatic and ruthless. The only thing he cared about was increasing his own power, and his family. He was arguably the worst person that Len had ever answered to, but even he didn't have a secret dungeon where he kept elfs chained up to be harvested for magic ingredients, as Claudia had implied when they'd first marched him through the castle. And, he had never crossed borders to kill a child.

Which meant that Viren was the worst person she'd ever worked for.

That didn't sound like much of an achievement.

The elf was chained up, his arm above his head while his legs were tucked beneath him. He was covered in bruises and small cuts and one of his horns was cut half off. She had never seen an Moonshadow elf up close before. A splash of violet marking cross the bridge of his nose and intersecting lines and circles decorated his upper arms. He was broad in the shoulders and a pair of scars crossed across his bare torso. Someone had taken his shirt from him at some point and Len made a private note to thank them for it.

Despite all of that it's his eyes that catch her attention.

Deep blue, filled with fire and defiance. A fierce pride that shines through even as he sits in chains and captivity.

Lenore steps behind Lord Viren, out of the elfs sight. All she could think about what everything people had told her. That's elves were bloodthirsty monsters, who ate the hearts of man. And her own experience, brief at it had been, had done little to deter these rumors.

"I certainly hope you're comfortable," Lord Viren says. Lenore can hear the venom that drips down from his tongue. "Lenore."

She steps out, unable to look away from the elf. "My Lord?" she asks.

"This is Lenore," Lord Viren says, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I am leaving your care up to her."

At this her head snaps towards him, startled. Her?!

"I'm sure you'll treat him justly. It was elves that destroyed your village, wasn't it?"

Lenore looks away from Viren, between him and the elf who had apparently decided that this is not a conversation worth listening too.

"Yes," she says at length. "Sunfire elves." Not Moonshadow. Not that that makes much difference to most people. And in any case, it wasn't her village. They were only there for a short time before the attack, but it's an easy story to tell and few people press them for details.

"You'll bring him his meals and care for his worries. If you can," Lord Viren said. He tapped his cane on the ground twice and turned. The smile on his lips was not a kind one. Len stood there, watching him go. She tries to puzzle out just what his intent was. He vanishes down the hallway. Len listens to his footsteps fade away.

Only then does she looked back at the elf.

"Well. This is going to be fun," she says dryly. The elf shoots her a glare to venomous she almost cringes. Almost. As it is she sinks down at his side. Skirts piling around her knees. She doesn't know what Viren's scheme is, but she doesn't want any part of it.

She's here to do her job, and that's all.

* * *

"You know the way the human rib cage works, if our arms are help up too long we'll get water in our lungs and die."

He looks at her again. His blue eyes are burning. Len had never had so much hatred directed at her for simply living before. She ignores it and slices through the bread she's been she'd brought. Bread and water. It's not much, but it's something.

"That's the wrong way to say it," she amends. "Our ribs pulls apart to bring air in and collapse to let it out. If they can't collapse, we don't finish the breath. The body can go into shock pretty badly, and sometimes is leads to a pericardial effusion and water gathering in the lungs as well."

She holds up the slice of brown bread to the elf, who neither looks away nor makes any move to accept the bread from her. His eyes are burning.

"Not that you actually care," she goes on, "And honestly you probably know lots of ways for humans to die. Elfs too, I bet. Do elves have the same inter-country politics and problems that humans do?"

"I'm not telling you any'thin,"

"Well now that's just rude. And here I am, offering you fine knowledge on human respiratory system," she makes a face at him, but she knows its more playful than rude. She really doesn't know what Viren was thinking, sending her down here.

She does, privately, celebrate getting him to say anything. It's the first words he's spoken to her since they'd met that morning and she soaks in the accent. She loves accents. He sounds almost english, but it's not quite right. She doesn't know where to place it, exactly.

"If you don't want this bread, I'll take it," she tells him. She's lost weight over these last eight months, weight she most certainly wanted back. It's dehydration and half starvation, from the long march that she, her sister, and a scattered few other survivors of the razing of Liath.

He looks away from her then, bitter and angry.

Len roles her eyes and puts the bread back on the plate.

"Suit yourself," she says. She sweeps the plate off of the floor and leaves, just as Lord Viren and Claudia walk in. Len dips a graceful curtsey to the pair of them and goes on her way. She doesn't think she liked either one. It's entirely person.

Claudia seems like a sweet, fun girl but Len will never get over how easily she simply crushes the life out of other beings to suck the magic from them, or how eager she was to hold a captive. It holds too close to the Dark Stars.

She guesses that, if he had killed someone as close to her as Harrow was to Lord Viren and his two children, she might be a little more eager to see him in pain. Len wasn't sure.

There was a part of her that still felt distant. Set aside from everyone else in this world, this world that was not her own. She was not a servant girl in the palace of Katolis, she was not even an orphan, or the child of a blacksmith that had died months ago.

She wondered if her sister felt the same way. Jen was just as out of place as she was, but she had left less behind. Not a career or the esteem of her colleagues or the years and years of research and trial and error. Or even her stupid, petty rivalry with Andy Larson.

She has lost all she had and if she ever finds the bitch responsible-

Well, she doesn't know what she'll do. But she'll yell, for sure.

* * *

When she returns the next morning with a bowl of lukewarm porridge and the news that the princes aren't dead the prisoner is in a bit worse shape.

There's a split across his brow that wasn't there before and his mouth is half swollen. Some of his other bruises have faded but they've been replaced. The purple and yellow and green is ugly and it really does so very little to distract from how beautiful the elf still is.

Len muses that it's really not fair. Elves are stupidly pretty, and they have interesting horns and unique markings and they are born with magic and they live so, so much longer. It's not fair, the difference between them and humans.

Len kneels at his side. He could, she understands, drive that remaining horn of his through her eye if he really tries. She figures he won't. Her eyes are pretty, dark green. She wonders if the elf can see them in the darkness, or if they look brighter by candle light.

"Are you going to eat this morning?" she asks. He glances at her, the fire in his blue eyes no less prominent. He stares straight ahead again. Refusing to answer.

"Stubborn," she accuses. "Come on, you need to eat."

"Why?" he asks at last, "So your dark magician can keep me here longer?"

"I mean, I was thinking because starvation is really unpleasant. It takes humans about," she pauses, running through the math of proteins and glycogens breaking down, fats dissolving, "Five, sometimes six weeks to start eating its own muscles. So you'll still be here for probably a month at least, even if you don't eat. "

"I am already dead," he says.

Lenore frowns. "That's depressing," she tells him. "I guess I don't get elves," she admits. "Maybe it's got something to do with how short my life is."

She picks up the tray and leaves him again. She'll be back again tonight with whatever the kitchen sees fit to send down to the prisoner. She hops up the stairs swiftly with all the grace of a deer. She's always been light on her feet and the years and years of ballet and later free running had left her skilled and quiet for no other reason than it was the only way she could get out of the house.

The castle in the center of Katolis is a winding maze. There are two towers that climb towards the sky, a square tower, taller of the two, that once housed the king and his royal family. The second tower is smaller, home traditionally to the archmage and his own family. In this case, Viren and his children. The rest of the castle is akin to a city within the high walls, perched upon a cliff that juts above a winding river.

River and her sister have their own little cottage with a thatched roof inside of the bailey. Most of the staff is the same, especially people like her, who work so early in the morning or stay most of the day around. Those that keep the live stock, the stable hands, along with guard garrisoned and the nobility all live inside. Everyone else makes the trip to and from a village at the base of the craggy mountains every few days, to bring trade and other things.

She hadn't known exactly how medieval castles had worked before coming here. She had walked through some, seen the inside of the Forever Knights fortress, but she had never put very much thought into them. They were old and she was a city kitty at heart.

She is still. She misses the high towers and the loud, busy streets of cities, She misses the pulsing life of oceans of people moving as one, she misses the yelling of cars and the never ending light, be it morning noon or night.

She misses grocery stores. She misses cable.

She misses her goddamn roomba.

Jen is sitting by a candle when she walks in. She's a sweet girl. Taller than Len already, but her face is still heart shaped and rounded by puppy fat. Her eyes are surrounded by long lashes, and her brown hair is long, braided to the side of her head and falling into a fishtail down her shoulder. Her shoulders slope and despite her athleticism she's a healthy weight, round around the middle. The only thing she and Len really have in common is the freckles that smatter across their cheeks and noses and the green of their eyes.

Len likes to keep her hair, a shade of red not far from rust, cropped just above her collar bone, no bangs to be found. Once, when she was young, she kept it long and always in a dancers bun. Now she keeps it easy to get out of the way. It's uncommon here, for a girl who isn't a soldier to keep their hair cropped, but she's find with that. There are many things about her that are uncommon.

"Hey Newbie."

"How were the catacombes?" Jen asks. "See anything dead or frozen?"

"We're not in fucking Westeros," Len makes a face. "Thank christ. I'd end up on a murder spree before starting the industrial revolution."

"Who first, Jofferey or Ramsay?"

"Depends," Len sinks onto one of the two cots that makes up their one room house. She's had studio apartments bigger. "Is it the show or the books?"

They dissolve like that for hours, until Jen blows out the candle and they're talking about Asgard. With the moon filtering through the slated Len looks upon her sister and can't help the sigh that passes her lips.

She doesn't know if Viren picked the right sister or not.

Jen isn't like her. Jen is so tethered to this world and her trauma is so new and fresh. She is driven by anger, by fear, and by love in a way that is so very different from Lens. She thinks she would have mashed the food into a paste and shove a reed through the elf's nose to get him to eat. To keep him alive for as long as Viren and his torments desired.

She hadn't been burned by the flames of the Razing but her soul had been scorched and her heart scarred by hatred.

Jen is so young. She's just a teenager and she hasn't as much of the universe as Len has. She doesn't know people the way Len does. She doesn't understand hurting and being hurt as intimately, and she is so, so young, and so soft. The worst thing that's ever happened to her had been the Razing of Liathe, and people half strangers to them were killed by elves.

The worst things that have ever been done to Len had been done by mortal men.

Hers was much more personal, she thinks.

Len rolls over on her cot and lets go of some small concentration that's always in the back of her mind, like the kind other people use to keep their balance when standing. Her right arm dissolves into a cloud that settles across her skin and the night falls quiet and peaceful.


	2. Genesis : Jen

The sword is heavy in her hand.

Jen tightens her grip, changes her feet and drives it hard into a practice dummy. It doesn't feel natural to her, and if she's honest the thing she's best with is a bow. But the military of Katolis works with all sort of weapons and if she wants to be accepted into their ranks after she 'comes of age' or whatever she's going to have to practice harder.

She's going to have to be better.

The kingdom is still reeling from the death of Harrow, and Jen is among them.

King Harrow had shown her kindness when he was under no obligation to. He had taken her and Len in from their tragedy along with the other dozen survivors from the Razing of Liathe. People here were kind, in general. Humans were kind. The people of Liathe had taken them in when they had found themselves thrown from their home and into the river. They had been fished out and given a place to stay, until the attack.

Jen stabs the dummy with a grunt, her green eyes narrowed and glowing with her fury.

She had been helpless then. All she could do was watch the fires burn across the village while the elf's marched in, tearing apart house after house and driving their glowing swords into humans. Len had grabbed her and forced her to run, but she could still hear the screams.

She could still smell the burning flesh.

King Harrow had taken them in from that. He had given them jobs, given them a place to stay. Len was content to be a simple servant but that wasn't enough for Jen. She wanted to repay him for his kindness. She wanted to never run away again. And King Harrow had offered her a way to do that, too. She was just a page yet, the oldest one there was, but if she worked hard enough she might be a squire before the year was up. She was already an athlete.

King Harrow was why they had all this. King Harrow was the one who had granted them this chance and she would never forget that kindness. She would never forget him walking amongst his men, telling them how to adjust their grips, how to set their feet, how to steal their courage.

She would never forget the quiet night she had gone to him, begged his audience and told him the truth. Their truth, the whole truth, the truth that Lenore insisted no one could ever know. She was a coward, so afraid of what would happen, so willing to run. Jen was not like her. She was younger and already she was less afraid of a fight.

King Harrow had listened. He had believed. He had promised her that, once the fighting was done, he would have Viren look into a way to get them home. But for then, for right then, it was just for them to know. The idea that other worlds existed was dangerous information and they coudln't afford for the wrong people to know.

He had comforted her, helped her, and now he was dead.

Jen took the head off of the practice dummy, watching it roll onto the ground. Her breathing was heavy and hard.

He had helped them and now his sons were gone. Taken on the night of his kidnapping by an elf.

She knew what she had to do.

* * *

She couldn't find Commander Gren, or Soren, or Lord Viren, _or _General Amaya.

She did find Claudia.

She offered her a swift bow, not a curtsey since she didn't have a skirt. She wore the pages uniform, a red tunic over a long black shirt, black breaches and brown boots. It's nothing like the soft poly-cotton she grew up with, but it's good enough. Sturdy, it won't tear, and she has yet to wear patches between her thighs.

She's very different from Len in how she's built. She's shorter and stocky, a little round but strong in her shoulders and quick. Len is a ballerina, literally. She's lean and tall, all legs and arms. She's not strong like Jen is. She's smart, wickedly smart, Jen has seen some of the crazy things she's come up with but she's not brave or strong.

There's a reason Jen is the one who's going to be the knight. And she will be, just watch.

She approaches Claudia in the east wing, mindful not to sneak up on the girl . She doesn't want to be turned into a toad, or whatever. Claudia is a fair young girl, her long hair is so dark it shines near-violet in the burning sunset. She's a year older than Jen is to the day.

"Claudia?" Jen calls carefully. Claudia looks back at her and her eyes, normally so bright with some sort of mischief or plot ot new knowledge she's gained, are trouble. Jen feels herself soften. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" Claudia repeats. She laughs, but there's something about it that doesn't sit right with Jen. A high note that shouldn't be there. "Nothing's _wrong_, silly. I mean, besides the King being dead and the princes being missing. And us being on the brink of war," she rambled on, her gaze drawing away from everything before it snapped back on Jen so fast she almost jumped. "But besides all that, everything's fine!"

Jen doesn't think she believes that. But, she takes a deep breath anyways. This has to be done. She has to do this.

"I want you to take me with you on your mission to get the boys," she says quickly. Like maybe if she talks fast enough Claudia will forget that-

"You're just a page! We can't take you with us."

"I'll be useful," she promises swiftly. "I can be, really! I'm a good tracker and I can find them for you, and I'll be useful in the fighting-!"

"_Genesis_, you can't."

Claudia is not harsh in her words but hearing her given name makes Jen's hair stand up on end. The only people who use it are her parents. She doesn't even know how Claudia got ahold of it but it feels wrong coming from her lips, even someone as sweet as she is. Jen's stomach curls.

Genesis. The name is strange, even here among 'Ezran' and 'Soren' and 'Aanya'. She is the only Genesis. Because her name is weird. It's not Jennifer, or Jane, or even Geneviere.

"I can help," she isists, but Claudia shakes her head. "I'm sorry. But Soren and me, we've been training for this kind of thing our whole lives. You've only been doing it for a few months. I can't take you with us. I know you want to help Callum and Ezran. But you can do that by staying here, and being ready for their return. Hold down the fort, you know?"

She offers her a smile that's so kind Jen feels part of her bitterness and the unease of being called Genesis eb away. Her shoulders drop. Claudia smiles at her, touches her shoulder, and glides away.

Claudia is no help. Claudia thinks she can't do it.

But there might be another… Someone who can overrule her.

If she can convince Viren she can be of use, he'll send her along with his children to get the prince's back, and she can start to repay her debt to Kind Harrow.

King Harrow.

Kind was good too. He had been, and the messy business with the Dragon Prince was the price that they had to pay. Elves and Dragons had been the ones who had pushed humans out of Xadia, their own ancestral lands, and split them off from it with a river of lava. They were the ones who continued to keep them out, who hoarded magic all to themselves and looked down on humans. They were the ones who crossed the borders and killed innocent men, women and children for a few shiny rocks.

Jen lets Claudia go and runs to find her father. The party sets out at dawn, and she needs to be with them,, but it's hard to find them. When Lord Viren doesn't want to be found, almost no one can find him.

Jen stands in the courtyard and takes a deep breath. She focuses on Viren. On his staff, on the closed off grey of his stormy eyes. The streaks of white in his hair and the little smile he gets whenever he has a 'creative' solution for a problem.

If she were Viren, and her kids were going out in the morning on a quest, where would she be….

She would be up on top of the battlements, looking out the cliff they sat upon at the forrest bellow.

Jen takes the stairs too at a time. The sun is almost gone by the time she reaches the top and the shadows wrap around her shoulders in a cloak. Metaphorically, of course.

THey still keep her pretty out of the way as she sprints up the stairs to the high walkways on the edge of the castle wall. The air up here is crisp and clean and sparkles with stars. She takes a breath, then another, trying not to start panting,

Voices draw her down the pathway. Viren and Soren. She knows better than to interrupt them but she wishes she had. She wishes that she doesn't here what follows.

"Accidents happen all the time," Viren says, his voice smooth and velvet. "You will return with the news that the princes have perished, and I will make a stronge ruler for the kingdom. The kind that Katolis needs. I know you'll make me proud."

His hand drops on Sorens shoulder just as the sun vanishes at last and the three, the father, the son, and the not-so-holy, not-so-much-of-a-ghost.

She is frozen. She's not stupid. She knows what she's heard and it roots her to the ground until she can't move. Can't run back to the little room they'd given her and Len, can't grab her sister and shake her and tell her about this. Ask her what to do.

She knows what Len would say. She would say to run. To stay out of it.

But Jen can't. She owes to Harrow. Even more than that, Ezran is a child. Callum is a good person. They don't deserve to die, especially not at the hand of someone that they trust. Did Claudia know? Was that why she had been acting so strange earlier? Because she knew they were going to kill the boys?

If the elf hasn't killed them already, Soren will, and she needs to get to them. Fast.

Soren and Viren leave. They don't notice her, and it makes it easy for her to go sprinting down the high spiral staircases. Her heart is in her throat as she slips into the room she and Len have. Len won't be back for a few more minutes and that's all the time she needs to cram food into her backpack. Her school books at long gone, shoved under her straw mattress.

Len had been walking her home from class when this had all started. She thought so, at least. Everything from their change in worlds felt fuzzy and Wrong. But the backpack is sturdy and it settles on her shoulders, and over top of that she draws a long cloak. It gives her the look of a hunchback.

She pulls out a piece of paper and a pen and writes a quick note that she puts on Len's pillow. She takes all the money she's shored up in the last few months, hopes its enough for a horse, and slips out into the night. It's an adventure, a dangerous quest, and if Mulan can do it, why can't she?

Thus begins the Crucible of Genesis Henley.


	3. Runaan : Len

Len is lucky she likes dresses. Although, she likes shorter skirts and higher heels, and tights too. She could get away with wearing pants, probably. General Amaya wears pants. Jen wears pants. Claudia wears pants and skirts.

Len keeps her legs covered at all times. It keeps people from asking questions that she has no intention of ever answering here. People were too obsessed with magic. They wouldn't udnerstand the truth.

That magic wasn't real. That 'magic' was just science that humans couldn't yet understand. She could. She had spent her life unlocking the secrets of the world around her and applying the sciences and it had left her with rather… unique souvenirs.

She called herself a doctor. She called herself a bio-mechanical engeneer. None of that covered all of what she did. She took it upon herself to reconstruct humans, to enhance them, but everything she did she did to herself first. How could she ask others to put themselves in a dangers she was unwilling to face herself?

So she pushed the sciences, until she had this.

Her arm, that is.

It's more than just her arm. It's so much more, but an arm is what she is missing and so an arm is what she uses it for, hidden under leather gloves and out if the sight of gods and men. The metal is silver, perfectly shining and smooth. It could almost pass as an arm painted to look like the tin man for halloween. But halloween doesn't exist here, and so it is an oddity that she is more than happy to keep to herself.

Magic, it could probably be dismissed as, but she doesn't want to answer too many questions of Viren's. She doesn't trust him, not as far as she can throw him, and the new 'assignment' she's been given doesn't help matters as all. So she keeps her hand and its secrets hidden. This world doesn't need to know about her Matrix.

Not that old one did either.

Len held her skirts in one hand as she descended the long staircase. It was dark and deep where they were keeping the elf, and she had to bring a candle with her each time she went down, even in the middle of the day. She was lucky she had, somehow, managed to rid herself of most of her claustrophobia years ago, or Lord Viren might well be needing someone else to look after his little guest.

This time, she's brought an extra bowl with her. She knew Lord Viren had been down there earlier this morning. So she had come prepared.

She sets the candle down when she enters on a low stool in the corner.

"If I unchain you so you can pee, will you try and kill me?" she asks. For the first time in their brief relationship she sees surprise flash through his burning eyes. "Oh come on. 'Already dead' or not I'm sure you'd prefer to die with a bit of dignity. So. Can I have your word that you won't snap my neck when i turn around to give you that dignity?"

"And why would you trust my word?" His voice is rough with disuse, and maybe screaming. She's hoping for screaming. There's a new cut on his brow, and his cheek is bruised and already turning yellow. His left arm looks bad too. "I am an elf."

"Oh, I know you are," she assured. "It's pretty clear. With the purple skin and horns and all. Antlers?"

"Horns."

"Horns. But I know men, more than I wish I did. And I figure your words worth about as much as theirs. People are people. Now, yes or no?"

He eyes her. She thinks it might be looking for some treachery, but he must not find any for he nods at last, once.

Lord Viren didn't give her the key, but if she angles herself right the elf can't see silver glimmer out of the gap of her long sleeves to slide into lock. It clicks and falls away and she still half expects him to gut punch her in the gut, but he doesn't. He rises to his knees, his body quivering with the effort.

Len takes a healthy few steps away and turns her back. There's a drain in the corner, close enough for him to pee in if he aims. She gives him a few minutes before she hears cloth rustle and a grunt and dares look back. He'd against the wall again. She can't believe he didn't spread his legs out in front of him and alleviate his undoubtable pain. Must be an elf thing, or an honor thing, or a stubborn guy thing.

Len goes to kneel at his side and grabs a cloth off of her tray, dipping it in in a thin yellow soup. "Let me see your wrist?" she asks.

"Why?" he demands. It's a fair question and though his eyes are still burning there's something new in them.

"Because they look raw. It's just diluted yarrow, it'll stave infections and give some relieve from the chaffing."

"I am already dead. You are wasting your time. "

"Maybe," she admits, "But Lord Viren told me to tend to you and that is exactly what I plan on doing."

He didn't say anything else, and he still refused food and water but he humored her tending his scrapes and bruises. It wasn't much, and she knew that nothing she did would really help him, but it was something. Surely it was worth something.

He didn't put up a fight when she chained him back to the wall and left, the food now cold on the plate.

* * *

That night there is another, chained to a wall. She stops at the base of the stairs, staring at him. She knows him, if only by reputation.

"Commander Gren."

He tosses her a smile, in strangely high spirits for the position he's in. That is to say, strung up on the wall with chains.

"Hi Len. I didn't know you came down here."

"Yeah. I feed the elf. What are you doing down here?"

"Oh, you know, just hanging out."

Len stared at him.

Gren smiles at her and she's honestly surprised with how gentle it is. "Can l get a bite of that bread?"

"Uh, yeah." She feeds him the bread, her stomach turning. She couldn't imagine what Gren had done to end up down here. She'd heard that he was one of the best commanders, General Amaya's personal aid, and no one had ever said a mean thing about him.

So why was he chained up? This was Lord Viren's dungeon, not the public one. She didn't understand how laws worked here. But she didn't trust Lord Viren, or his kids. And this seemed kind of shady. Very shady. She does _not _like it at all.

"Thanks," he smiled at her and Len nodded, drawing away.

"Sure."

Unnerved and a little sick to her stomach Len made her way to the elf. He refused, as he always did, to eat.

"You're troubled," he said, in that strange voice that seems so otherworldly. For her, it really is. Len doesn't say anything at first, and he goes on. "You've placed your loyalty in an honorless man."

Lenore shakes her head. "I'm not - I mean, I work for him, so I guess I am," she says, "Not that an assassin has much honor."

He stiffens and turns his burning eyes on her.

Len looks at him, a calmness blanketing her. "You're an assassin. You sneak around and kill people in the dark, when they don't know you're there, and you can't fight back. I can't say I find much honor in that."

"Your leader takes the life from other creatures and uses it for twisted 'magic' and you preach to me about honor-"

"Lord Viren is my employer. He couldn't lead me to a bathroom."

The elf sneered at her. "Human greed. Is gold all you think of?"

Unapologetic, with an anger simmering under her skin Len kneels in front of him.

"I have been so broke that I couldn't attend classes because because I was too weak from hunger and I didn't get paid under the next day. I have had nothing, I have begged and clawed and dragged my way out of that poverty, yes, created by a human system, but I am here now. And my sister relies on me and she will not know that creeping fear or that pain or the humiliation that comes with it. So yes, gold is takes up a lot of my attention."

"And you may call us greedy, and you may call us cruel. It's true. It's in our nature, I've felt it, I've been its victim. The worst things I've seen in my life came from humans. But as capable as we are of cruelty, we are equally capable of kindness. It is a choice that each of us must make. And I chose, when I can, kindness."

She stands with a swirl of her skirt.

"Have a nice night, sir elf."

She is halfway down the hallway when his voice reaches her again.

"_Runaan_."

She stops at the doorway. Halway between Gren and the elf, with the staircase lifting itself up above her head. Leading out of the darkness and tight walls and the remembered terrors.

"Goodnight, Runaan. Goodnight Gren."

She climbed the stairs and left them behind. She expected, when she returned, to find her sister waiting for her in the room.

She found, instead, a letter.


	4. Spiral : Len

Her feet are bleeding again.

She leaves red footprints in her wake as she paces around her room, too distracted to bother with wrapped them up again. There's no tape here, like she'd normally use, only thin strips of cloth that don't compress well enough. Things have gotten harder since she got here.

Len mutters to herself as she things, counting up in a spiral. She'd reached the highest she could go yesterday and started over a couple of times already. The sun was up again. She hadn't slept, but she didn't feel the tired anymore.

"One to two, to two to three, to three to five, to five to eight, to eight to thirteen to," on and on. It helps her think, it always has. The sea shell that hung around her neck had been worn so much by her nervous fingers that the catch of each segment was smoothed flat by now.

She pivots to the right, staring hard at the innocuous note left by her intrepid sister.

Her foolish sister, off on an adventure. Len is caught between pride and unadulterated terror. Jen had gone to rescue the princes, to fight a witch and a knight and its all very brave but _god damn i_t Jen is just a kid and she's never been on her own before and Len is responsible for her in this fucked up world they've landed in.

She snatched up the letter again, glancing across the crumpled paper.

"- to Nine eighty seven to fifteen ninty seven, to fifteen ninty seven to twenty five eighty four, to-"

_Len _

_I overheard Soren talking to Viren. He's going to kill the princes if he finds them. I can't let that happen so I'm going to stop them. Don't try to follow me, you'd only get hurt. Don't trust Viren. _

Short and simple. Jen has never been the type for poetry or flowery words. She chafed visibly under their parents strict rules and acted out differently than Len, who snuck about and did her rebellion without getting caught until she was old enough to leave.

Jen is brave and Len is proud. Jen is so _goddamn _stupid and Len is going to lose her mind.

It's not a hard guess to figure out where the princes and their elf kidnapper are going. There's only one place she would possibly take them, and only one place that everyone else will be following them.

Xadia.

Theoretically, Len knows how to get there. Keep going west until you hit the giant lava river, cross the giant lava river, and you enter the land of the fae. Or whatever the fuck. In actuality, it was much more difficult than that.

The town that the sisters had first been allowed to stay in had been near enough to the border that if she looked carefully at night she could see the cherry red glow far off in the distance, beyond the trees and across the river that was warm enough to kill bacteria and fish both. The places to cross the river were few and far between and Len had never known them. The elves would. She could go back, maybe, if she could remember the way, but that was no guarantee that the princes and her sister would be anywhere near the village. Len couldn't track the way that Jen could.

There was only one person who would know exactly where the elf kidnapper would have gone.

"-to thirty one seventy eight eleven."

Len stops pacing. She turns and holds the letter up over a candle, letting it catch on fire. No one could know what was going on. Probably, she should get word to General Amaya, but she doesn't know who was loyal to her and who was loyal to Lord Viren. The only one whose loyalties she is sure of is her own, and the two fellows chained up in the dungeon.

This is, arguably, the stupidest idea she's ever had in her life.

Len knows herself. She's reckless, her curiosity is all encompassing and she doesn't always think things through. But she needs to get to Jen, before something happens to her. Lord Viren's children are dangerous. Claudia walks on an apathy for other living things that frightens Len more than she cares to admit.

Soren, she fears nothing from. Another boy with a sword, and not even a threatening boy. Talented, yes, but swords are metal and so is she.

Mind made up, Len starts bustling about.

Len decides that this is not, actually, the stupidest thing she's ever done, but it is the most ill prepared thing she's ever done, and she's going to have to deal with that fact as she goes on. She packs up all the food she can that won't spoil, rolls tight packs of clothes, and the thick blanket off the bed. Her bag won't be light, but it's compact and she can carry it. Len is a ballerina, she's got endurance to spare.

She wraps her feet again, the bleeding has stopped, and stuffs them into thick hiking boots that had come with her. Her jeans are long gone. She misses them.

With everything ready for a hasty exit Len walks out the door on quiet feet, aiming for the kitchen. It's time for her to visit Runaan as it is.

She sweeps in, moving swiftly as she gathers the bland porridge and the water, enough for Runaan and Gren, and if she snatches a little extra no one notices. Len moves swiftly, through the long corridors. She has to fight not to print as fast as she can. She can't attract attention. This is delicate work, for her, and she is about to do something very, very crazy.

Excitement buzzed in her veins against her will.

She hadn't gotten into this much trouble in-

Well, maybe in ever, if she was being honest.

Len rushes into the dungeon. She passes by Gren, stopping short when voices came from the other room.

"You've done it," says Runaan, a note in his voice that Len hasn't heard before. Fear. She stands up straighter. Just what is Lord Viren doing?

"Oh, have I?" his voice is smooth. Intriqued. Len takes another step towards the hallways. Gren hisses at her.

"Dont! Whatever Viren is doing, don't get involved," he hisses.

Len glances back at him. Her heart is picking up again, beating hard in her ears. The hallway feels smaller. She fights the claustrophobia trying to creep back into her system. She shoots him a comforting smile and steps forwards again. Down the long, reaching hallway. Runaans voice, so different from before, comes to her once more.

"That mirror? You have found something worse than death."

_Mirror_?

Len stops behind Lord Viren, standing just in the shadows. At some point since last night Lord Viren had brought in a large wooden table and, of all things, a full length mirror. She can't see much from the back, but it looks old. Of course, everything is old as balls here. Still. There's something about it that sets her on edge, a copper in the air, the taste of nitroglycerin creeping onto her tongue.

"Then, tell me," Lord Viren sound excited. Expectant and angry at once. "What is it?"

Runaan looks up and the fire in his eyes threatens to consume everything. Len feels her breath leave her all at once.

"I will _never _help you."

She watches, quietly stunned, as Lord Viren stands straight, putting his weight on his staff. His shoulders draw back and his voice is chipped ice.

"Then you are of no use to me."

He lifts his cane, a dark violet electricity crackles across it and Len breathes in, feeling it draw its way into the fibers of her being.

"Lord Viren!" she blurts out. He spins to her, his eyes a terrible purple and for an instant Len is caught between fear and wonder and a burning need to understand what caused it. She stamps it down and stands before him, as tall as she can be. The light flickers out, and Lord Viren stares hard at her. His veins are pronounced, dark against his pale skin. It had taken Len half a week to find out that no one but her could see them, creeping away from his eyes like cracks from a chasm of darkness.

"Lenore," he looks down at her. "You're no longer needed here. We will only have one prisoner after tonight."

"Oh," she says. She glances at Runaan, who for the first time since she's met him looks truly frightened. There's still a fierce undercurrent of pride and unbending will there.

"Don't tell me you were gaining some sympathy for this monster?" Lord Viren narrows his eyes. Len can see it, clear as day. How this man might send someone to kill a child. How this man could crush living beings under fist for just a fragment of power. She is reminded, again, of her old employer, but now she can see where they differ. Where Xanatos' limits were, Lord Viren's stretched beyond.

"Of course not," she says smoothly. "Sympathy for the devil? I was just surprised you would let him off so easy… after what he did to King Harrow."

She sees the exact moment the darkness in his eyes shifts. He looks back, at the elf who looks at Len like she's betrayed him. Which, she has.

"Oh, he won't get off easily at all," he promises.

Len nods, once. "As you say. In any case, mistress Opeli was looking for you. I believe it was important…"

Lord Viren grumbled, looked between her and the elf, and threw a sheet across the mirror once more. Len stepped away as he swept past her, his staff clacking hard against the stone beneath him.

"Feed Commander Gren and be done with it. Understand?"

Len nodded. "Of course, my lord."

She waits until his footsteps are gone and the feeling of static across her skin fades before she slumps against the table, her heart pounding in her ears.

"You're doing me no favors!" Runaan snarled at her as soon as Viren is gone. Len knows that its a waste of time but she cant help it. She pulls the sheet back off of mirror. She expected… something. What she got was just a mirror. An old mirror, yes, but a mirror nonetheless.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall…" she murmurs. But no magic happens. There's runes around the edges that patter in a sort of spiral. She squints at it. Xanatos had had a book of 'magic' that he'd kept in his office for a while. Len had flipped through it a few times when she'd been waiting for him in his office with new plans. They're not exact, but she can line up some of the symbols/

"Its weird. I know some of these," she touches the edge of the mirror. "Saroir, eternity. Cython, wisdom. That ones almost Cynath, death, but its missing a marker. So, undeath? Hah… Is that one light? And that one's night. I think," Len traces the mirrors edge, she can feel something in it. An energy that thrums beneath her fingertips. Her palms itch and she shoves them swiftly in her pockets.

She pulls away and looks at Runaan. "What is this mirror?" she asks. The wide eyes that stare back at her make her decidedly uncomfortable.

"You're a mage?" he hisses the word at her like a curse. A mage. Like Viren. She kicks her ass into gear.

"I am definitely not," she says firmly. She pulls away from the mirror and crouches in front of him. This is her only chance. Viren will find out about her lie and she can only hope that Opeli is somewhere hard to find. "How would you like to get out of here?"

Runaan narrows his eyes. "What kind of trick are you playing?"

"Not a trick. A bargain," she takes a deep breath. "Lord Viren has dispatched his children to kill the princes of Katolis. And my sister has gone to rescue them. From the princes, and from the elf that kidnapped them in the first place."

He sits up straighter. Sucks in a breath that's part relief and part horror and Len knows that she has him caught.

"You might be dead, Runaan, but she's not. And neither is my sister. She's the one I'm after. I'll free you, if you swear that you'll take me with you after them, so I can get my sister back safely. Do we have a deal?"

"What about the princes?" he asks suspiciously.

"I don't want them to die. I don't think children should be killed for the crimes of their parents. So if and when we find them, I'll try to keep you from hurting the boys. But I'll risk it, to find my sister."

She knows that Jen won't let him kill them willingly. And she knows that the band on his arm keeps getting tired. She'll hedge her bets on him being unfit to fight properly once they catch up with them, if he even has an arm left. She stays still, looking him dead in the eyes. She's honest and forth coming, and whatever Viren had almost done must have frightened him to his core for he finally, finally, dropped his chin.

"Fine. We have a deal."

"I'm trusting your word, Runaan," she reminds him. He meets her gaze steadily. Satisfied, Len grasps his shackles and unlocks them, one, then the other.

"You should eat, deadman, before we go."

Runaan stands. He rubs his arm, barely wincing. It looks back. Dark and an angry purple. She watches him manage to work the band around it down to his fore arm before it stops there, not going any further.

"There is one more thing," he says. Len frowns at him.

"You didn't say that before."

"I'm saying it now," he replies smoothly. He nods towards the mirror. "We bring that with you."

Len falters. "Excuse me?"

"The mirror. We can't let that man keep it. We have to take it with us. Or I don't bring you with."

Len shoves herself right up in his face. "You're full of so much shit. We're gonna go so slow with that thing."

Runaan stands slowly on minutely shaking legs and looks down at her, unintimidated. He has a good foot on her, towering above her.

"That's my deal."

Len worked her jaw back and forth before she nods, swiftly.

"Fine," she says, trying to revise her plan. The mirror will pose a problem. He has a bad arm, and she's too small to carry it easily, no matter its weight.

She spins around the rushes from the room. Sprints down the hall until she's standing in front of Commander Gren, with his freckles and his messy hair and his wide eyes, looking at her. Afraid, worried, and hopeful.

"Why didn't you tell me about Lord Viren?" she asks, even as she unchains him.

He drops to the floor with less grace than she has and she catches him, deceptively strong for how short she is. Smaller than both of them, but the most physically fit and how sad is that? Her arm isn't even real. She's quietly grateful neither of them ask how she unlocks their chains.

"I didn't want you to risk yourself. You're not a soldier, Lenore."

"Len," she corrects immediately. "Not Lenore. Or, Nevermore!"

She ignores his puzzles look. "How much did you hear?"

"All of it. I'm in."

"You're not going to go to General Amaya?" Len can admit to being surprised.

"She entrusted the princes safety to me. So where they go, I go."

"Okay," Len starts to smile.

This is looking a little more doable, with the three of them.


	5. Soldiers : Len : Pencils : Jen

Len sweeps through the castle, quiet and quick on her feet. A horse will go faster, especially with a mirror dragging them down, but she can't get one from the castle. It will look too suspicious.

What she can get, is cash.

Or coins, at least. She picks the lock to the wages clerks office easily, and swipes as much copper and silver as she can. Gold will draw too much attention. She stuffs the coin into a bag with sheep wool inside, to keep it from rattling around as she moves.

They can't leave right away. If they leave in the day time, they'll surely be seen, and it's too much of a risk. They must wait for the cover of night. Len manages to arrange for Viren to be occupied for the rest of the day, and set things up to her own advantage, with whispers to Opeli's people and a minor stable fire that ensures the horses are harder to mount for a cavalry.

Most of it is Runaan's plan. He's clever and dangerous,and Len likes the new light in his eyes. It's still burning but the fierce resignation has been replaced by new determination.

Len is the one who brings Viren his dinner, and waits for him to pick through it idly. He makes a face but doesn't complain about how salty it tastes.

Funny. She would have expected a man who worked with so many herbs and creatures would recognize benzoin resin. Of course she'd extracted a crude oil from it and mixed it with coal tar and Valerian root until she had homemade roofies to feed him, so perhaps she was expecting too much.

She waited until he was swaying in his seat to collect the tray she excuse herself. The thud of his body on the floor was music to her ears.

By the time the sun went down that night she had three more packs for them, filled mostly with water, as well as a sword for each of the men. They had stayed in the dungeon all day waiting for her, and as the shadows of night crept through the castle she returned to them.

"I didn't think a bow would be a good idea," she told Runaan when he eyed the sword. His mouth curled distastefully and his purplish fingers twitched.

"You don't have a weapon?" Gren asked, looking at her empty hands. She wanted to say something cool, like, _I am a weapon. _ Instead, she shook her head.

"No. My sister is the soldier. "

"And what, then, does that make you?" Runaan asked coolly.

Len shrugged. "A dancer?" A scientist.

"Wonderful," he drawled. "A human soldier and a dancer. "

"Hey!" She huffed at him. Len threw the cover back over the mirror so it wouldn't catch and light and hefted it into her hands. It wasn't so heavy, but it was taller than she was by half and she struggled with it. "So uh. What happens if I break this?"

Runaan scoffed. "It doesn't break."

"Is it magic?" Gren asked.

"It feels weird, whatever it is," Len muttered, hefting it higher.

"You can _feel _magic?" Runaan asked incredulously.

Len paused, looking at him. Her brows drew together. Was that it? The strange electricity that crawled under her skin when she touched the mirror?

"Um. I dunno. It's energy and there's a lot in this thing. I'm not a witch, i don't know shit about magic," she stared down at the mirror she was holding. Then, shrugged. "Fuck. Okay. Let's go."

"That's it?" Gren asked, looking between them. "You can feel magic, and you're not gonna do anything about it?"

"Yo, I don't know what you want me to do about it, but right now all I wanna do is get the fuck out of here," she said firmly. They look at her strangely and she ignores it. It's hard to keep speaking so strangely, especially when she's so preoccupied.

"We do need to hurry," Runaan agrees, "Viren might find us at any time."

"Oh. No, he won't be moving for another ten hours," Len says certainly.

Gren squints at her suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

"I drugged him," She says simply. Runaan nods, approving, while Gren looks rather wary.

Gren helps her with the mirror. Runaan is rather occupied by his arm, still heavily restricted, and looking worse every time Len looks his way. Still, he keeps pace with them, doesn't complain about the pain he must be in, and for that he has her respect. Len leads them through the passage ways she'd explored with the younger prince, trying not to think about the fact that her new co-conspirator was willing to kill him.

Len knows this is a harsher world than her own, but killing children, seems so very excessive. Would Gren do it, if the child was an elf?

She decides she doesn't want to think on that very much.

Len has managed to get a wagon together, and a set of plain brown horses to pull it. It will take them faster to the border, and they won't have to carry the mirror, but they will have to stop in towns more often, to get extra supplies. She's starting to hate the mirror.

Together, under the cover of darkness with clouds coursing over the moon, they escaped into the countryside.

* * *

Jen sat at the edge of the stream, watching the water go by her feet. It ran swift and deceptively peacefully but Jen knew better than to trust it. Currents were dangerous and fast and could kill just as easily as anything else on the planet. She trusted water as far as she could throw it. So about two feet, give or take.

It wasn't really the water that held her interest as she sat upon a stone the jutted dangerously above the river. It was in her hand.

She'd snatched it before she left the castle, she knew she would need it for what she was about to do.

Jen didn't clearly remember the first time she'd done this. It had been years ago, in the backyard kiddy pool she'd been screaming about Len being gone and, trying to ruin her favorite barbie doll, in her tantrum she'd fallen face down into the water.

After that, it turned into something of a habit.

Whenever she wanted to find someone, or figure out where they were or what they were doing, all she had to do was this.

She held one of Ezran's toy soldiers in one hand along with a pencil Callum had used so many times it was little more than a nub now. They weren't a strong connection, but neither boy was very materialistic, and she didn't have a lot of time or option.

Grimacing at her reflection in the water, distorted and round with puppy fat, Jen scrambled back from the water and climbed down the stone.

She came around until she was at the edge of the water. Went down on her knees, clutching the soldier and the pencil tighter, and took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

She shoved her whole face in the water and opened her eyes.

It happened fast. Like a rippled travelling across the world, bouncing through trees, animals, flowers, and people her consciousness shot across the space between them, until it pinged like radar off of Callum and Ezran.

Jen ripped her head out of the water, gasping for breath. The world span around her and she slumped heavily against the stone. Something wet, thicker than water, dripped down her upper lip.

She wiped the blood away impatiently, trying to get her bearings back. It always felt like she'd gone six rounds on a tiltawhirl and been shot through a pin ball machine when she did that.

Jen didn't have a lot of secrets from Len, but this strange tracking ability of hers was one she had always kept close to her chest. No one knew about it. Even here, with the magic in the world and impossibility of the two of them existing, she kept it from her sister. Len was delicate, and soft. A dancer. A lab worker.

She didn't need to bother with her sisters abnormalities.

Even though they were too far away, and there was too much alive in between them for her to track their path exactly Jen knew which way she needed to go now.

She grabbed her bag, already lighter than it had been with the emptying of her canteen and the lessening of her food supply, and set off to the north-west. As long as she had the soldier and the pencil she could keep track of the princes.

In retrospect, she should have grabbed something of Claudia and Soren's, too.


End file.
